


On the Same Page

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: due South
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, POV Third Person Limited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:34:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21785290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: Vecchio decides to make a move.
Relationships: Ray Kowalski/Ray Vecchio
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26
Collections: due South Seekrit Santa 2019





	On the Same Page

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mizface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizface/gifts).



> Thanks to Scribe for beta!

So, there we are at Kowalski’s place, eating pizza and watching the Blackhawks get their asses handed to them on the tube. This is something we do pretty often—well, except that sometimes our teams win. It’s kind of a strange thing to do, I guess: hang out with your partner outside of work all the time. At least, I never used to do it. Of course, when I was married, I usually went home and hung out with my wife. But then Fraser came along, and he was an exception to pretty much every rule, and he was new to the city, a fish not just out of water but stranded on the moon, and I wasn’t married anymore, and pretty soon we were friends as well as partners, and anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I got used to hanging out with Fraser pretty much all the time. I'm guessing it was pretty much the same story for Kowalski, seeing as how he was just coming off of partnering with Fraser when him and me started working together. So, what with one thing and another, it’s just business as usual for the two of us to be parked in front of the tube together on a Friday night, brushing knees on Kowalski’s ratty loveseat.

Just business as usual, except for the business I’ve got on my mind, which is not usual in any way, shape or form. Nowhere near usual. Not even in the same ZIP code.

It’s not a spur of the moment impulse. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Figuring out what's what, deciding what I want to do about it, and then, well, the place where I hit the wall was trying to figure out how to bring it up with Kowalski. That was good for a few weeks of wheel-spinning as I came up with more and more elaborate plans for where and when and how, until I realized that all I was doing was increasing the chance of shooting myself in the foot, plus all this planning was a great way to put off actually doing anything. So, driving over to Kowalski's after work today, I told myself: _Tonight's the night. Shit or get off the pot, and stop thinking so goddamned much._

Which is why, at the next commercial break, I hit the mute button and before I can lose my nerve, I say, “Hey, can I ask you a personal question?”

Kowalski gives me a look like he’s weighing the odds, then shrugs and turns his face back towards the TV. “Sure, why not?”

“So, don’t take this the wrong way, but uh. . .you gay?”

There’s a long pause, him staring at the TV, me watching him sideways. Finally he says, “Bi. I wasn’t faking it all those years with Stella.”

“No, of course not,” I agree hastily. “That’s what I meant. You go for guys, too.”

“Yeah.”

So far so good.

“Is it. . . theoretical, or you ever actually. . . ?”

“How is that your business, Vecchio?” he asks, still calm but with a warning edge to his voice now.

“I _said_ it was a personal question.”

“Is this about Fraser?”

“No!” Although it’s a fair question, because it’s not like I haven’t wondered. “So, but, are you saying you and Fraser—?”

“Hell, no. Strictly buddies, me and Fraser. Not to say I didn’t wonder, sometimes, but I wasn’t gonna ask him about a thing like that.”

“Fraser’s the last guy on the planet who’d go all homophobic on you,” I object.

“Yeah, no, he’s cool that way, but I mean, can you imagine trying to have a relationship conversation with Fraser? Or even a hey-you-wanna-have-sex conversation? ‘Cause I can’t.”

I snort a halfway-laugh at that. “Yeah, Fraser always was big on talking about everyone’s feelings except his own. I remember this one time, we were in a standoff-with-guns kind of situation, and he distracted the bad guys with this sentimental monologue about loving his childhood father-figure. Said afterwards that nothing unnerves men like feelings talk."

Kowalski gives a snort of his own. “Yeah, only that's still more'n I ever heard out of him.”

“But still, if—” 

“Wasn’t just that, though,” he interrupts. “I also just. . .it was good, being friends, partners. It didn’t always come easy, we had to work at it, but we did, and it was real good. I didn’t want to mess with it. Figured, best to just not look under that rock. Maybe we’d both be better off not knowing what was underneath, you know?”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

I nod, he nods, and he doesn't say anything else: done answering the question. But we're not done, and we both know it. Just because he hasn't asked, _What the hell is this about, Vecchio?_ out loud doesn't mean he isn't waiting for me to tell him. 

I take a deep breath. “So. . .what about this rock?”

That gets him to look at me, finally. “This rock? What ‘this rock’?”

I meet his eyes, pretending like I'm not sweating bullets, and wait until light breaks over Marblehead.

“What, you and me?” he asks incredulously. 

I nod. 

He opens his mouth, shuts it again, narrows his eyes, rubs the back of his head, and finally asks, “You think there’s something to uncover, here?”

“You don’t think so?” I do a pretty good job of keeping my voice casual, if I do say so myself.

“With you? You’ve never had your hand down another guy’s pants in your life,” he says. He doesn't sound mad, though. More like he's daring me: challenging and curious and yeah, with a spark of excitement underneath. _Are you really gonna…? This I gotta see._

“How do you know?” My face is hot but I’m damned if I’m going to be the one who breaks eye contact first.

“You telling me I’m wrong?”

“No,” I admit. A pissing contest is one thing, but this is not the time for bullshit. “I’ve never even been to a high school circle jerk.”

Kowalski bursts into that dorky laugh of his. “Hell, me neither. I always wondered if those really happened or if they were just an urban legend.”

“No clue," I say, which makes him laugh harder, and I have to laugh myself, too. And this could be the end of it, sharing a good laugh at ourselves and our shared lack of cool and the ridiculousness of humanity. A nice little bonding moment, and then someone gets up to grab us another couple of beers and we go back to the hockey game. But I don’t want that.

“All right, but listen, Kowalski, I’m serious.”

He gives me a considering look, long enough to make me start squirming. “You seriously want to fuck me.”

“Yeah, I—” I lick my lips. “I mean, I don’t know what specific—I haven’t thought about it in, you know, graphic detail. I just. . .we get along, I like you—more than like you, okay?”

“Okay,” he echoes softly, half a question.

“And I just. . .I feel like. . .I don’t know, I got these feelings, and sometimes I think maybe you. . .anyway, I figured it was worth asking. To see if you—but look, if you don’t want to, no hard feelings, I just thought—”

He leans in so suddenly we almost knock heads and smacks a fast kiss on my lips, then backs off again just as fast, leaving me feeling like I’d fall over if I wasn’t sitting down. Crosses his arms as he smirks at me, daring me to freak out. 

Well, screw that.

“Jeez, Kowalski, did you learn your romantic moves off the back of a cereal box?”

He opens his mouth—to protest or make a smart remark, I don’t know and I don’t care, because I’m not giving him the opportunity. I cup his face in both my hands and pull him in for a slow, sweet, romantic kiss. His eyes widen in surprise, but he relaxes into it right away, closing his eyes. I close mine, too, now that I'm sure he's on board. I give him my best, and he returns everything with interest. We keep going for a long time, and when I finally let go of him and sit back, his eyes pop open, round and looking at me so softly that I’m tempted to go right back to kissing him.

“Now, see?" I say instead. “That’s how it’s done.”

Kowalski nods slowly. Licks his lips. It makes him look vulnerable and sexy both at once, don't ask me how that works.

“I bow to your superior expertise,” he says. “Got anything else you want to show me?”

He leans back against the cushions, spreading his arms along the back of the couch, letting his knees fall open. Another challenge, and by the way, he does in fact look sexy as hell sprawled out like that, but he’s looking over my shoulder, not at my face, which tells me the pose is just that.

“Yeah,” I murmur. I scoot closer, until my hip is snugged up against his, and slide my arm under his neck. “Yeah, I just might.”

I kiss him again, and he meets me halfway, and it’s just as good as before. I comb my fingers through his hair, which is weirdly stiff with whatever he uses to make it stand up like that, but hey, I lived through the hairspray-happy eighties, this isn't so different. I play with his ear, stroke the side of his neck. Run my hand over his shoulder, off the edge of his T-shirt to the bare skin of his biceps. Lay my palm over his heart, feel the heat of him through the cotton. His hands finally leave the couch; one cradles the back of my head while the other slips under my shirt.

I’d kind of wondered whether the rules would be different for making out with a guy. Would it be a big race to the orgasms, do not pass Go, do not collect $200? Not so much, as it turns out. Kowalski’s usually Mr. Impatient, but here, now, with me, he seems happy to neck on the couch all night. All our clothes on, hands under each other’s shirts, holding each other and kissing and kissing and kissing until I feel like I might spontaneously combust, but at the same time, I’m not in a hurry, either. I like the softness of his mouth, the hardness of his skinny body under my hands, the heat pumping between us, the racing of my heart—all anticipation, no fear in the mix, and I can’t remember the last time I felt this way.

Kowalski's breath is hot and quick on my ear as he mutters, "You like this, Vecchio? You into this?"

"I'm into this," I tell him, and I go to kiss him some more, just to make the point, but his lips are still moving even as I'm trying to slip my tongue between them, he's still talking, "What are we doing here? You gotta tell me what you want, 'cause—mmmph!" 

He finally takes the hint and gives in to the kiss, lets me push him back against the couch, relaxes under my weight with a contented sigh, the kind you make when you get in the shower after a long, hard day and the hot water hits your sore muscles. My throat tightens up and my eyes burn a little, and I just want. . .I want. . .I don’t even know what I want, but I want him to know, I need him to _get_ it.

“Hey listen, uh. . .” I clear my throat. “I don't know what Fraser told you about me. . .”

“Not much,” he says, blinking up at me with a confused little frown that should not be cute on a grown man, especially not a grown man I’m making out with. “Unless you count shit like _Ray Vecchio would run into a burning house to save a bowl of goldfish.”_

“Benny never said that!”

“Uh huh,” he insists.

“Well, he was pulling your leg. I wouldn't.”

“Uh huh,” he agrees, but with a skeptical undertone this time, like, _Sure, buddy, I’ll humor you._ Which. . .I mean, I _wouldn’t_ go into a burning building for goldfish, not unless maybe Fraser did one of his might-as-well-be-hypnosis snow jobs. . .but for Kowalski to make out that he thinks I'm secretly the same kind of nutso superhero as Fraser, well. That’s really something.

“Anyway, I meant. . .I mean, I kinda got a rep as a ladies' man, smooth operator—”

“Uh huh.” This one’s outright sarcastic, and the corners of his eyes crinkle up with mocking laughter. Well, he ain't the first to make fun of me and he won’t be the last, and more importantly, he’s also giving me the kind of fond look that Fraser used to, the one that says, _You’re ridiculous, never change._ Only Fraser’s fond look never had the undercurrent of sexual heat Kowalski’s beaming my way.

I swallow hard and push forward with my point. “But I'm really more kind of a hearts and flowers, dinner and dancing kinda guy.”

“What, like long walks on the beach?”

“Yeah.”

“’Til death do us part?” he asks quietly.

“Um. . .yeah. Actually. Okay, so I'm divorced, but—”

“So'm I,” he says, even softer than before. And no shit, I know he’s divorced, but I also know that’s not what he means.

I cup his face with one hand. His eyes meet mine. “See, I knew there was a reason we got along.” 

“Well, it certainly ain’t your taste in cars,” he whispers.

“Or your taste in clothes,” I respond, the punchline of our routine that’s so well-used by now, it’s past running joke and more like our personal version of how-are-you-fine-thanks.

He grins, that fond and hot combo again, with an added spark of mischief. “How about my taste in guys?”

“On that, I got no complaints,” I say, and he pulls me down for another kiss.


End file.
